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Monthly Archives: March 2012

Today’s Quote: The only journey is the journey within.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Today’s Home Focus: Do you have something in bloom to welcome you home? If you are lucky enough to have a yard say thank you and enjoy it on the way into your house. It should mean more than the last 10 feet before you hit the remote on the garage door. If you are in other types of housing can you at least put out a potted plant or a small vase of flowers so one the first things you see when you get home is something green and blooming? Home needs to be a refuge from the world and not just where we sleep for 6 hours a night before we are up and running again.

KTime: Today I am feeling inspired to spend some time in the kitchen making White Chocolate Cupcakes

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Today’s Quote: Determination is more powerful than doubt. – Woman’s World

Today’s Housekeeping Focus: Living Room and Home Office. Is your living room a welcoming place for family and friends. Can you open the door to a friend and they have a place to sit and a place for a teacup? If your living room is looking more like a dumping ground than a place to socialize then let’s go pick up and put away. Then do a quick dusting and shining of reflective surfaces. and do a quick once over of the the floor, then add some fresh flowers or something pretty you already have to your coffee table and there! A place to watch a movie, or chat with someone special or even just a pretty spot for your KTime.

KTime: Spend some time enjoying all that a new spring represents. Let go of last winter’s troubles and rejoice in new beginnings. If you have a roof over your head, food on the table and your family is safe then all is well and that is enough. Those things alone make us wealthy beyond measure. It is this constant need for more that needs to be released. It is okay not to go on vacation, to not have a smartphone, and to drive an old car. I will sit with busy hands so my mind can wonder and enjoy a bite of something sweet and a cup of herb tea tonight.

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Today’s Quote: Little privations are easily endured when the heart is better treated than the body. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Today’s Housekeeping Focus: Today I am having a regrouping day. I am going to make sure all my laundry is done and that includes putting it away. Dry doesn’t mean finished. I am going to review my meal plans and see what I might need from the store in the next three days. When my schedule gets chaotic I can’t always plan a week ahead but I can do three days ahead. We are nearing the end of the month so it is time to review upcoming bills. One of life’s luxuries is to pay the bills on time and put something in savings. If you can do that then consider yourself wealthy.

Today’s KTime: For supper tonight I am going to have oven baked nachos with fresh salsa and three milk cake. So perhaps for my evening KTime I will enjoy a simple green tea with my knitting time.

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Today’s Quote: The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it. – John Ruskin

Today’s Focus: Today let us do a quick tidy from the weekend. Have you put away your tools and toys from the weekend? Don’t leave your stuff all over the place. Put your stuff away when done. If you are trying to put supper on the table but first you have to find the table it is way too easy to just go get something and then we have messed up our budget and our figure. So today let us spend a few minutes clearing the table, actually spending a few minutes setting it pretty and maybe add a centerpiece. Anything you have on hand and is small and pretty can be used as a centerpiece. I have even used baby shoes during a birthday week.

KTime: What’s for dinner and rest time tonight? I am planning on making potato soup served with crescent rolls and a sugar pie.

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Today’s Quote: Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. – George S. Patton

Today’s Housekeeping Focus: The area where you come into your home. Even if you use the backdoor this is an important transition from the outside world to your place in the world. It should be an attractive place and not piled high as a dumping ground. Do you find you walk in and just dump what is in your hands and leave the pile? This wears on you and does not provide a sense of peace and welcome when you walk in the door at the end of your daily adventures. It should be a welcoming place with as pleasant view as possible and good smells.

Today’s KTime: Let us spend a few minutes outside. If you have a yard go and enjoy. This is not the time to worry about the yard work. This is the time to enjoy nature’s gifts. If you don’t have a yard then find a park or enjoy a meal outside on a patio. So join me today outside for cup of tea and some time with our knitting, or a good book. Take time to take care of you so you can then help take care of others that depend on you.

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The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Today’s focus is on our transportation needs. If we drive a car does it have plenty of gas and is it free of trash? If you use public transportation do you know where your pass is and when it expires? We all go out and about and it greatly relieves stress if we can get someplace quickly without a last minute scramble for the keys and to stop for gas. Or if we can’t locate our pass and the people behind us are getting irritated with us. So once we have spent a few minutes making sure we are good to go for next week it is KTime.

I found a lemon pie that sounds really good. My forecast calls for a high in the 80s so maybe it is time for a nice glass of ice tea. So join me on the porch for a slice of pie, a glass of tea and spend some time rocking and knitting.

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Today’s Focus is on your bedroom. Do you need to change the sheets? Is there a pile of clothes waiting to be dealt with? Do you know what color the carpet is?

Let’s get in there and spend some time making our bedrooms an end of the day haven. A place for us to put our tired and stressed bodies at the end of the day. Your bed should be comfortable and pretty. If half of the bed is occupied by a laptop and papers then just for tonight try reading a book before you turn out the light instead of staying up too late working or chatting away. Oh – you don’t have a bedside light? On of my favorite things is a touch lamp. It is easy to turn on or off when I am more asleep than awake. So let’s make up a fresh bed and lay out our comfy sleeping clothes. So our bedroom will be waiting for us after our KTime.

I am thinking that for tonight’s KTime I will enjoy a green tea and maybe a cupcake.

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Today’s quote: Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. – James Thurber

Fear and anger are relatives. So forgive the hurts and move on. Even if you are currently at the bottom of the ladder (again) at least in this country there is a ladder. So let us pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, light a candle for ourselves and one more for someone who has hurt us and get on with today.

Today’s KTime focus is on bathrooms and laundry rooms. Is your bathroom a welcoming place ready to pamper your tired body or is a comment about how your week is going? Let’s get in there and shine it up so it is ready with a clean fluffy towel, a bit of your favorite soap and most of all 30 minutes to enjoy a nice soak.

Is your laundry room a tower of clothes in various stages from dirty to clean but not put away? That is no way to treat what you present yourself to world in. Now clean out your lint traps, wash off the tops of the appliances and move a load on along. If you go to a laundrymat pick one that is clean and bright – not just the one closest to you. Do you have a spor ecial coin purse to put your quarters in? Dumping a roll of quarters in your handbag does nothing for either the handbag or you.

So now that we have clean clothes and a clean bathroom let us go and have a leisurely soak, put on soft fresh clothes and have our KTime. Something good from the kitchen and something to knit.

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I was traveling this past weekend so I am working on laundry today. I prefer to do a load a day and stay current but between a roommate who starts a load and then wonders off to do something else and my trip I got behind. It won’t take too long and I will be all caught up again. And note to self the laundry isn’t done until it is put away.

It is also time to deep clean the kitchen. So let’s make sure we have dishes done, our counters cleared, the trash out and then pick one area for some extra love today. Do your floors need a good cleaning, how is your fridge and pantry looking? Do you know what you have? Do you have something pretty to put on your table? It helps to keep the table from the mail landing spot. Since today is the first official day of spring here and we had a bad storm come through last night I am thinking some flowers would be just the thing.